Back in February, Microsoft ended several tumultuous weeks of swirling speculation (not helped by its own cryptic pre-announcement of the upcoming announcement) when it revealed that four of its previously exclusive games—Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded— will launch on other platforms.
At the time, the company emphasized that these were older games, each launched more than a year ago, and highlighted the upcoming Indiana Jones title from Starfield and MachineGames as exclusives that were not included in the announcement.
However, it would take a bit of willful illusion not to foresee that this was just the start of a wider strategic turn – and sure enough, the other shoe finally dropped at Gamescom this week when a spring 2025 PS5 launch date was announced for Indiana Jones and the Golden Circle , just a few months after the start of December on Xbox and PC.
Microsoft clearly has no intention of simply ripping off this Band-Aid and switching to its intended future business model in one fell swoop. It's been clear for some time now that Microsoft has extensive plans to shift its model toward third-party publishing on multiple platforms, but the exact shape of that future business model remains a bit elusive, not least because of these slowly unfolding steps, each of which is articulated in careful denial of the other.
Microsoft isn't worried about potentially dampening Indy's impact on Xbox sales. That's no longer the metric he cares about, nor the price he has his eye on
Like a shy swimmer braving the cold sea, Microsoft delicately lowers itself — and perhaps more importantly, the Xbox fan base — into the water, letting every part of its body gradually adjust to the thermal shock. Would it be faster and easier to just jump and let the shock end? Sure, but it also seems like a hell of a way to give yourself a heart attack unless you're in a bad state of health.
So this week, the company waded a little deeper.
From old games being launched on other platforms to expand their audience, we're now seeing a major new game effectively become a limited-time exclusive with the PS5 release a few months later. Some observers will likely expect this to be the new status quo, at least for a while; major Microsoft titles that launched as limited-time exclusives on Xbox and PC before coming to Sony and/or Nintendo platforms a quarter or two later. However, I don't think it's right, or at least I don't think this new status quo will be anything more than a temporary pattern, for one key reason: the PS5 launch date announcement was made right next to the Xbox launch date. announcement, which is, frankly, really weird.
This is not how timed exclusives generally work. When a platform holder has paid for a time-limited exclusivity or planned a time period of exclusivity for one of its own games (such as when Sony releases titles on PC), it is more common that the very existence of a version for competing platforms will not be discussed in detail until after the launch on the time-exclusive platform .
At the very least, the launch dates for the other systems won't be confirmed until the launch on the primary system has had a chance to sell its inventory. The reason for this is obvious; Timed exclusives are meant to sell consoles, and telling people they'll only have to wait a few months to play the game on other systems dampens that effect significantly. One could reasonably question whether platform holders would even see any competitive advantage in paying for timed exclusivity if launch details on other systems were to be negotiated so early in the process.
So why would Microsoft announce a PS5 launch for one of Xbox's biggest titles that will launch in 2024? Why not announce the Xbox and PC launch date – December 9th – and let it sell until Christmas before announcing the PS5 version a few months before the early 2025 launch? This timeline would be more normal for a limited time exclusive game.
Of course, one possible reason for the joint announcement of the data is that it's a mistake—that Microsoft doesn't yet know the tradeoffs and moving parts of being a platform holder that's also a major third-party publisher, and hasn't thought through the implications of putting that information in its notification. It's possible, but I'm not buying it. The sheer number of checks, balances, and opt-outs that are done before notifying Microsoft makes an error or oversight of this kind extremely unlikely.
It's almost certainly not a bug, which leaves a second explanation: Microsoft doesn't care about Indy's potential dampening effect on Xbox hardware sales because that's no longer a metric it cares about, nor a price it has its eyes on. Announcing the PS5 date so early makes perfect sense if Microsoft's business strategy is now more focused on further strengthening its position as a major third-party publisher on PS5 and other platforms than selling Xbox consoles.
That would seem like a wild assumption if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft executives have been telling us so outright for some time now. Phil Spencer has openly claimed that the company is not trying to “out-console” Sony or Nintendo. While the company emphasized the specifics of moving these four original titles to other platforms in February, it was also very clear that this represented a change in strategic thinking—a new paradigm, not a one-off event.
The elephant in all of this is the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a move that irrevocably changed the balance of Microsoft's gaming business. Overnight, most of Microsoft's game catalog became cross-platform by default, because Activision Blizzard's games are cross-platform and must remain so in order not to reduce the business unit's revenue. As a result, Microsoft's gaming division is no longer a console hardware and platform business, and some studios are attached to produce exclusive games; it's now a gigantic game publishing enterprise with an important but still somewhat vestigial console platform business attached to it.
What does the future of such a business look like? In the short to medium term, it needs to show revenue growth – Activision Blizzard's price tag, Microsoft's most expensive acquisition ever, plus the billions already spent on ZeniMax may not be repaid as such, but must be continually justified by economic growth.
Like a shy swimmer braving the cold sea, Microsoft sensitively lowers itself — and the Xbox fan base — into the water, allowing each part of the body to gradually adjust to the thermal shock.
That said, the idea of Activision Blizzard's catalog becoming an Xbox/PC exclusive and avoiding release on its competitors' better-selling platforms is simply impossible – there's no scenario in which the Xbox division pressures Microsoft to approve a $70 billion spending spree for acquisition only for the purpose of immediately liquidating the primary sources of income of that company. With much of Activision Blizzard remaining a third-party publisher for other platforms, keeping other games as part of the platform exclusivity of the Xbox Studios family feels like an artificial and unnecessary distinction for the company to make – so it's inevitable that it will just end. do it.
Microsoft games will no longer be differentiated by the platforms they're on, but which game streaming and subscription services they'll be on at launch – happily boosting sales on Sony and Nintendo's platforms while encouraging people to head towards the game. Pass Ultimate subscription on PC and Xbox.
In this context, a timed exclusivity for Indiana Jones feels like a halfway house that doesn't really satisfy either of the company's goals. It will lower Xbox hardware rates for launch, and at the same time – as Chris Dring pointed out on our Gamescom Opening Night Live podcast – will likely reduce potential PS5 sales.
This is not a long-term strategy; if I had to speculate, I'd guess that the company would have liked to rip off the patch a little more aggressively this time and release Indiana Jones day-and-date on Xbox and PS5, but was pushed into a time-exclusive because the PS5 version started development later and won't be ready for the winter induction.
It's also possible (and not mutually exclusive in this situation) that there are concerns about making these changes too quickly and creating disillusionment among Xbox owners, so a temporary compromise solution was chosen, even if it leaves the Xbox in the water halfway through. around him and chattering his teeth.
So what is the ultimate goal of this strategy? What does the Xbox division look like when it finally completes this transition and manages to get its head under water? Xbox fans are worried that the company is going the Sega way – pure third-party publishing – but I don't think that's a model Microsoft is seriously considering right now. He still very much wants Xbox to have its own ecosystem, not least because games sold on Xbox are dramatically more profitable for the company than games sold on any other platform.
In addition, the dream of a huge audience of closed customers on Game Pass services remains very much alive. Selling games through the Xbox digital retail platform and signing customers up for Game Pass is significantly more difficult if there is no actual Xbox hardware platform to build brand identity and customer loyalty. For now, the Xbox vision seems to be a “premium” place to play Microsoft games and access its services – but this “console of choice” model, where all games and services are available elsewhere, is a big gamble. and it remains to be seen whether he can maintain brand loyalty in the long term.
One point worth pondering is that all of this is happening at Microsoft at the same time that we're seeing a renaissance in gaming PCs – not just PCs themselves, but small-sized gaming rigs and PC gaming handhelds from the likes of Asus and Lenovo.
Valve kicked off this market with the Steam Deck, which remains dominant in the space – and it doesn't run on Windows by default, with Microsoft's OS support for such devices so poor that Valve went to the trouble of developing its own version instead. Linux with an amazing emulation layer for Windows gaming.
Microsoft is keen to boost sales on Sony and Nintendo platforms while also encouraging people to buy Game Pass Ultimate on PC and Xbox
Other devices in this space are impressive in terms of hardware, but are left behind by Windows' weak support for such gaming systems. In the realm of pure speculation, we can imagine how massively increased support for such systems would be by making Xbox software, services and interfaces part of the licensed operating system for such devices – especially at a time when Windows support for powerful, low-power ARM chips is improving rapidly.
A possible shift in focus in this direction, where Xbox becomes both a line of console hardware and a part of the Windows operating system that third-party manufacturers can put on their own PC gaming devices, would put Microsoft back on what has traditionally been more comfortable ground for the company . In this scenario, Microsoft's own Xbox hardware would occupy a similar space in the market to Surface laptops as a premium line of reference-spec devices.
This is not a new idea; The concept of Microsoft setting the reference specs and letting other people build Xbox consoles is as old as the Xbox concept itself, but the broader market and Microsoft's own strategies are likely finally coming together in a way that makes it viable.
However, this would create a new conflict for Microsoft, as Steam is now the dominant player in this field. Xbox may have given up trying to console Sony and Nintendo, as Spencer himself acknowledged; but could the coming years be spent trying to outdo PC Valve instead?